a medical librarian's adventures in evidence-based living

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January 04, 2009

For a Smart Happy Baby Please Turn That Stroller Around and Get Some Face-Time!

I'm years past pushing a baby buggy, but one day soon I'll get another chance. This recently published study from England's National Literacy Trust certainly turns stroller design on its head. Forget about cup holders & storage compartments! If you want a secure, smart, happy baby, it's all about which way the baby is facing--towards the parent or away from the parent.

Who would have thought?

We all know how important it is to talk to your baby--but that extends to stroller time as well! In England babies spend up to 2 hours a day in a stroller, so it's fair to ask:

"According to a new study, babies who sat in strollers that faced their
parents during their daily walks had twice as many conversations,
laughed ten times as much, and suffered less stress than babies who
were in the more common, front-facing models."

Even developmental psychologist Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk, the lead researcher of this Dundee University study, admits she hadn't given strollers much thought beforehand.

"Even as a developmental psychologist, this was not an issue I had
previously thought about, and I was surprised to find that no other
scientists had studied it either. Neuroscience has helped us to learn
how important social interaction during the early years is for
children's brain development. If babies are spending significant
amounts of time in a baby buggy that undermines their ability to
communicate easily with their parent, at an age when the brain is
developing more than it will ever again in life; then this has to
impact negatively on their development.

"Our
experimental study showed that, simply by turning the buggy around,
parents' rate of talking to their baby doubled. I had also not
anticipated that such a high percentage of babies in face-to-face
buggies would be sleeping – 52%, against only 27% in away facing
buggies. It was a complete surprise. This is significant as you are
more likely to sleep when you are feeling relaxed and safe.

"Our
data suggests that for many babies today, life in a buggy is
emotionally impoverished and possibly stressful. Stressed babies grow
into anxious adults. It looks, from our results, that it is time that
we began carrying out larger scale research on this issue. Parents
deserve to be able to make informed choices as to how to best promote
their children’s emotional, physical, and neurological development."

Advice from Liz Attenborough, Manager of the Talk to Your Baby Campaign:If you have a two-way facing buggy--use the sociable face-face option as the standard. Hopefully, stroller manufacturers will take note of this research and design a stroller to turn the babies around to face their parents (or grandparents).